Green Sense: Sustainability Guidelines in Built Environment

March 25, 2017

Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar

IntroductionA Seminar titled Greed Sense: Sustainability Guidelines in Built Environment was organized by Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi for Faculty of Physical Planning and Architecture, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar on March 25, 2017 in the Conference Hall of Guru Nanak Bhawan of the University. The seminar was well attended by faculties of Physical Planning and Architecture and students (175 Persons).

Session 1: Inaugural Session

The Chief Guest of the inaugural session, Dr. T. S. Benipal, Director Research, GNDU congratulated the Faculty of Physical Planning and Architecture and CSE for the collaborative effort and signing of agreement between

the two stakeholders to organize many such training programmes, seminars and workshops in coming future.

Ms. Anumita Roy Chowdhury, Executive Director, Research and Advocacy, CSE, New Delhi discussed about the journey of CSE as well as research of CSE on environment issues and waste reduction from industry. She touched areas of environmental

concerns, particularly the built environment, be that housing, slums, vehicular emissions, industrial area, etc. She expressed her thanks to the University Authorities for giving an opportunity to CSE for holding the event at GNDU and forging an agreement for next three years with CSE for capacity building and curricula revision of Physical Planning and Architecture departments.

Head, Guru Ramdas School of Planning, Ms. Kiran Sandhu, formally welcome the Chief Guest, the experts from CSE, faculties and students physical planning and architecture departments.

Prof. (Dr.) Karamjit Singh Chahal, Dean Faculty of Physical Planning and Architecture also expressed his thanks to CSE and emphasized upon the need to build such initiatives.

The vote of thanks was proposed by Ms Meenakshi, Head, Department of Architecture, GNDU, Amritsar.

Prof. (Dr.) Ashwani Luthra gave the background note as well as hosted and coordinated the event.

The first presentation of the first technical session of the seminar was made by Anumita Roychowdhury. She made presentation on Building Sense- the Environment Connection the Big Picture. Through her presentation she provided an overview of issues concerning urbanization, building construction and energy use with a special focus on developmental challenges in building sectors. She highlighted the fact that the India has still to build 70 per cent of its building stock which will be there in 2030. Pointing out that we have great opportunity to develop differently and be more sustainable.In concluding remarks, she said that cities should be safe by just designing the buildings in such a way that build stock is climate resilient and self-sustaining system. Therefore, it is important to include and integrate right principles in built space to reduce footprints.

Mr. Rajneesh Sareen, Programme Director, Sustainable buildings and Habitat programme CSE, stressed further by highlighting fundamental lacuna in sustainable built sense with regard to understanding green, performance benchmarking for green and right institutionalization for green he introduced CSE initiatives under various thematic areas of built environment and later provided an introduction to CSE sustainability benchmarking with special focus on operational benchmarking of built infrastructure.

He also discussed sustainability building guidelines for Andhra Pradesh. Further he discussed the example of CSE Anil Agarwal Environment Trainings Institute (AAETI), Nimli in Alwar District, Rajasthan and CSE building in Delhi to demonstrate the efforts to achieve sustainability goals. In Nimli- the Campus is designed by keeping in view climate analysis, shading analysis, heat island impact, window wall ratio, day lighting analysis, rain water harvesting and various shading devices both immovable and movable to control heat and glare. Similarly building rain water harvesting is done and waste water is treated within the building plot.

Session 3: Technical session 2 (Resource Conservation and Management)

Ms Sushmita Sengupta, CSE presenting during technical session

In the second technical session, the first presentation was made by Sushmita Sengupta on water management. The issues related to water were discussed. She said that the supply of water per head per day is more than standards. The rate of extraction of water is increasing as the urbanization is rising. The water recharging is not done in any case. Water quality is degraded due to waste water being dumped in open drains. She suggested rain water harvesting and ground water recharging as solutions and techniques to meet the water crises. She stressed that waste water should be treated and reused for various purposes.

Ms Swati Singh Sambyal, CSE presenting during technical session

The Second presentation by Swati Singh Sambyal was on Solid Waste Management. Her presentation highlighted the issues related to solid waste collection, transportation and treatment. She stressed that most of the solid waste is dumped into landfill sites. Basic problem is segregation of solid waste i.e. wet and dry waste. The best models of solid waste management in India i.e. Kerala and Panjim were discussed. Where solid waste is collected and how is it segregated at household level was part of her presentation. She stressed on initiating the action by not using disposable packaging materials. She opined that the solution of solid waste management is to minimize waste at household level so that the problem of solid waste is solved in a simpler manner. This model is practiced at locality level or institutional level.

Way Forward (Curriculum session)

Mr.Inderjit Ahuja, CSE presenting during curriculum session

In the curriculum Session Mr. Inderjit Ahuja presented four set of courses in CSE. He suggested there is a need to integrated sustainability courses in architecture curriculum. He also stressed that there is a need to include subjects like building physics, building simulations, sustainability principles in design of buildings. He highlighted the following as the main concerns.

Students should learn various building performance parameters.

The architecture schools should have laboratory for simulation facility in the dept.

Students of architecture should be given environmental education.

There is a need to link academia and professionals in the field of architecture.

More stress should be given on skills than on academic knowledge.

Mr. K.S. Sandhu, Associate Professor, Guru Ramdas School of Planning raised the point that there are no sustainability guidelines. He also raises the issue that there is no public participation at different stages of project planning, development or management. Responding to his quarries, Mr. Rajneesh Sareen said that these guidelines are under preparation in Andhra Pradesh and definitely there is a need to improve public participation and educating public on various related issues.